Schweinemädchen
by EarthScorpion
Summary: A Warhammer Fantasy fairy tale, with all the core elements of a proper example of the art. Which is to say, gore, moral lessons, and very very thinly veiled bowdlerisation of a folk tale that was clearly originally much more sexualised.


Once upon a time lived the lord and lady of what is now known as the Barren Hills. Back then, the uplands were green and healthy, and the inhabitants of that land were rightly proud of their many sheep. They boasted loudly at the fine quality of their wool, which was so fine that it could be woven as thin as silk from far-off Cathay, and of the good fortune that they enjoyed.

"It is for the best," they said, "that we not welcome any others into our land, for they will bring the violence and the war of the lands below up into our peaceful place. Indeed, it is likely that they are only here to steal our sheep, so they can breed them and then we will become poor. No, it is better we not allow them here."

Only one thing broke the tranquillity of this land, and it was this; the lord's bragging had offended the goddess Rhya, and so she had laid a curse on him such that any sausage he touched shrivelled up and turned bad. He was very fond of sausage, and so he was always in a bad mood and his wife would not speak with him. This was a problem, because she was as fond of it as him. To sate her hunger, therefore, her custom was that she went in disguise to outside their lands, and found a man who was selling sausages and ate her fill. And she would come back, and pretend she had never left and for a time her deception worked.

Unfortunately, she had eaten so much sausage that she began to put on weight, and her husband grew suspicious.

"Your dress looks tight," he said.

She assured him it was not, but she grew fatter and fatter, swelling up like a balloon. Her husband, realising he had been deceived, locked her in the dungeons, and when she had their child, gave the girl to the swineherds.

"She will like sausage as much as her mother," he said, "and I cannot bear to think of how she lied to me. Therefore, let her raise pigs so that if, one day, the curse is lifted I will be able to eat well."

So the girl was brought up not in the castle, but by the family of swineherds who were looked down on by all the shepherds, and they called her Schweinemädchen because even they did not love her.

Despite all that, the girl Schweinemädchen was clear of skin and fair of face, with the seeming of her mother. And every time the lord looked out of the window, he saw her and his hatred grew. So he took a knife and chopped up his wife, and gave her flesh to the butchers. The butchers were wicked men and women who had grown fat off the slaughter of the sheep, and took pleasure in shedding blood, so they willingly partook of his scheme.

That night, the lord invited the villagers to a grand feast. Everyone was invited, except for poor Schweinemädchen who was left outside to see that the beasts were rounded up. And inside, the shepherds and the butchers and the swineherds feasted well upon plump sausages, and the cruel lord smiled because though he could not eat with them, he enjoyed watching them eat more than anything else.

Morr was passing, on the way to the burial of a man a few towns over who was about to die of ague, and happened upon the celebration. His pale hand knocked upon the door, but they would not let him in. When he knocked again, they mocked him. He knocked a third time, and they threw bottles from the windows. And the god looked inside through a window, and knew what they were doing and what they were eating and knew their cruelty, and laid a curse on them and this land.

But on his way back to claim the man, he happened upon Schweinemädchen out in the dark, and saw that she was innocent of the arrogant spite of the people of this land. He paused by her, and gave her his cloak.

"Why do you do this, sir?" she asked him. "I will only dirty your clothes, and this is too fine for one such as me."

Morr said to the girl, "Run, run, as fast as you can, and do not wait for anything, little Schweinemädchen."

"But," said the girl, "if I leave they will punish me once again."

"They will not," said Morr. "For in that building they eat human flesh and so my light will fall upon them."

The girl looked at him and saw who he truly was, and she ran. She vaulted the rude fence that pinned the pigs in, and ran.

The lord's big and mean dogs set chase. Their barks echoed behind her, and they frothed at the mouth. But Morr's cloak gave her the swiftness of night and she left them behind her.

She grew hungry, and was tempted to stop and eat from an apple tree. But a raven alighted on the tree and with a caw warned her off.

She worried about the swineherds, who for all their cruelty had been the only family she had ever known. But her faith remained strong and she knew that the judgement of the gods had fallen on the wicked people of the hills.

Morr, who had by that time collected the man who had died of ague, returned to the sky. Opening his eyes, he stared down at the hills and saw the full evil that had occurred there, and a single tear fell. And it fell on the hills, and it was death.

But as she left the now-barren hills, Schweinemädchen happened upon the lord of a neighbouring land. He looked upon her face, and saw her mother in the girl, for the two of them had often eaten sausage together when the lady had left the hills.

He bid Schweinemädchen stop and speak to him, and he found her a girl of uncommon good sense and gentle kindness. As he had no heir, he brought her to his home and had her washed and cared for by his servants, and in the end he adopted her as his daughter and she lived happily ever after.

But on the barren hillsides that rose up from the woods, the twisted cursed sinners who had eaten human flesh now bleated and baa'd, changed by Morr's light. And they lived too, but not so happily.


End file.
